


Fosterling

by HopeCoppice



Series: Notches [2]
Category: Young Dracula
Genre: Backstory, Death, Gen, History, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 19:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bertrand du Fortunesa has had a welcome rest. Now, it seems, his work must continue.<br/>Chronologically speaking, this is the Third Notch.<br/>(Post order 1/7)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fosterling

**Author's Note:**

> These are going to be posted in the order I write them, but chronological order should be easy enough to follow.  
> I don't own Young Dracula and this is a speculative backstory, not canon.

Bertrand made his way downstairs as evening fell, to find his foster family already gathered around the table.  
“Have I overslept?” He smiled nervously as Baron Dumas rose to his feet.  
“Bertrand, my boy, you’re just in time!” He could never quite work out whether the head of the family was patronising him or if he’d genuinely become fond of him in the decade that he’d been staying with them.

Rumours of the Chosen One had gone rather quiet since the Anghelescu massacre, oddly enough, and he’d been resident in the Dumas household since only a few years after that. To begin with, he’d moved from clan to clan about twice a year, but since there was nobody to seek at the moment, he’d stayed here. Years had dragged on, and the children Bertrand had reluctantly been left to babysit when they were six, seven and nine respectively had grown up before his eyes. The youngest had got his fangs barely six months ago.

“In time for what, I hear you ask?” Actually, Bertrand had just assumed he meant breakfast, but he feigned interest as the Baron continued. “We have some very exciting news. Anton here has been having some _fascinating_ dreams which lead us to conclude that you were brought here for a reason. He’s the Chosen One.”

The Baron puffed himself up importantly – impressive for a man with no breath – and waited for Bertrand to lavish praise and awe in the general direction of the seventeen year old. He did look him over, but he already knew the answer he was checking. The Book had been in the house all this time – the kids had nearly drawn on it once, before he’d snatched it _literally_ out of Anton’s hands. If the boy had been the Chosen One, the Book would have reacted by now.  
“No.” He spoke quietly but firmly, urgently. “No, I think you’re mistaken.” The Baron was furious.  
“I most certainly am not! We’ve taken you into our home, boy, and you repay us by _arguing_ with me? My son is the Chosen One!”  
“Stop saying that. He’s not-”  
“The Council have agreed that, in the first instance, they’ll accept confirmation from you and then send a fitting deputation.”

There was a moment’s frozen silence before Bertrand spoke.  
“You told the Council?” The entire family nodded smugly; they seemed to be under the impression that they’d gone over his head and won themselves easy power – after all, their fosterling was hardly going to denounce them to the Council for fraud. “Excuse me.” They were right.

The stairs had never seemed so steep as Bertrand made his way back up to his room, heavy curtains pulled open now that night had fallen. He reached under the bed and pulled out a stake with two notches cut into it. He closed his eyes for a moment, considering possibilities, weighing chances. Then his sense of duty cut in, and his hand closed around the wood. They had made their choice.

Centuries later, sleeping in the training room at Garside Grange, once again surrounded by a family who’d taken him in, he would still be haunted by the image of Stelian Dumas, Anton’s younger brother, barely enfanged and begging Bertrand to spare him, the way he’d begged him to play as a child. Anton himself, not moving fast enough, staring in shock as the point of the stake passed through his chest. Mother and daughter, clinging to each other, slain in one swift blow as they stilled in resignation. And Baron Dumas, who had treated him like a favourite nephew – no, who had used him, buttered him up for ten years in order to make this foolish power play – and who had managed to outrun Bertrand until just after dawn, when he trapped him between a stake and the sunlight. He had chosen the stake, but not before a few stinging remarks about treachery.

Bertrand knew they were all true.


End file.
